Liquid Assets

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT LIQUID ASSETS - PAGE 4

Graphic: 1.6 million Children under age 5 who die each year in the world because of unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation 1.1 billion People without access to safe drinking water 84 Percent of people without access to safe drinking water who live in rural areas 0.3 Percent of the Earth's water that is usable by humans 6 quadrillion Gallons of fresh water in the Great Lakes; a fifth of the world's fresh...

Water, water everywhere. In real estate developments all over the Chicago area, water is cascading, flowing, rippling, reflecting-and selling. Selling? Yes, developers of residential and commmercial projects have been increasingly cashing in on the ambience of water. They say it helps in selling homes, leasing office parks, improving employees` morale, creating a positive image and beautifying. "Developments with water sell better than those without," said housing market analyst Tracy Cross, president of Northfield-based Tracy Cross & Associates.

The water shortages that are plaguing much of the United States would disappear quickly if owners of water rights were allowed to trade water freely. Instead, outmoded legal restrictions cause water to be wasted where it is needed the most. Water trading for traditional uses such as mining and agriculture has been around for some time. During the 19th Century, the early California gold miners initiated a system of water ownership that allowed buying and selling. The system, the "prior appropriation" doctrine, let miners own specific quantities of water based on who diverted it first.

If humans are innately drawn to water, they ought to be flocking to Palatine, where they'll find an apartment complex with water galore. There's a swimming pool and a 3-acre manmade lake, the latter the source of a system of waterfalls and shallow waterways shaded by trees and other mature landscaping and crossed by wooden bridges. The cascading water provides a peaceful background sound for visitors to Williams Reserve Apartment Homes, a complex of 30 two- and three-story buildings built in the 1970s.

The natural disaster that emptied Lake Delton in Wisconsin's prime tourism powerhouse last week has not affected 93 percent of the businesses in the Wisconsin Dells area, according to tourism officials there. The question is whether the smell from a sun-baked former lake bed with dead fish and other aquatic goners will. The answer, according to a spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, is not for long. "The scavengers -- raccoons and foxes -- will take care of them pretty fast," said DNR spokesman Greg Matthews, though he wouldn't say how fast.

Famous Amos has such a nice ring to it that many people think they know it if they don`t. Or even if they haven`t heard of it. Famous Amos is a specialty cookie store chain, much like Mrs. Fields. Management of Famous Amos, a firm headquartered in Van Nuys, Calif., claims that 3 out of 5 adult Americans know the name, even though there are only 34 stores (the closest being Milwaukee), and they aren`t in all parts of the country. Famous Amos cookies also are sold in supermarkets, where the firm has decent distribution nationwide.

On Jan. 17, 1900, a group of exhausted workers and nervous commissioners stood on the banks of the Sanitary and Ship Canal and watched as the dam at Lockport was lowered, making the final connection between Lake Michigan and the Des Plaines River and reversing the flow of the Chicago River. In that instant, when lake water began flowing through the canal into the Des Plaines River, Chicago's future as a robust metropolis was assured. This grand act preserved the integrity of Chicago's drinking water supply--Lake Michigan--by sending sewage downstream instead of into the lake, and it protected the city's residents from diseases caused by poor sanitation.

If "buy, buy, buy" was the yuppie battle cry in the fat years of the 1980s, then "sell, sell, sell" has become the anthem of the unemployed professionals of the '90s. Enter upscale pawnshops-looking more like posh retail establishments than ports of last resort-that are popping up all around the country. The new breed of swap shops caters to those who once had the money to buy fancy jewelry, cars and art, and who now must part with their valuables-at least temporarily-in order to raise quick cash.